30 September, 2017

Polls
shows support for public ownership of utilities, as Corbyn and May go
into battle over the economy

Voters
in the UK want the government to take a more socialist approach to
economic policy by renationalising railways and utilities, while
creating a wage cap for top earners, according to a new survey.

The
report, published by the Legatum Institute, a centre-right think
tank, shows that the views of the public on the economy are more in
tune with Labour's policies than the Conservatives, in what The Times
called a “warning” to the Tories on the eve of their party
conference in Manchester.

According
to the figures, 83% of British voters would prefer public ownership
of water companies over privatisation, while 77% want to
re-nationalise electricity and gas companies and 76% want the
railways back under state control.

The
news comes after a week of back-and-forth between Theresa May and
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn regarding economic policy. On Tuesday,
the Labour leader attacked Britain’s “failed model of
capitalism” and presented the Labour party as a government in
waiting. Yesterday May hit back, hailing capitalism as the “greatest
agent of collective human progress ever created”.

Although
Corbyn remains personally unpopular, opinion appears to be siding
with his policies. "The ground is shifting", says
The Daily Telegraph, while the New Statesman declares: “After
decades in which the market has held sway, voters are ready to summon
Leviathan from the depths.”

Partly,
says City AM, that's because socialism is no longer feared in the way
it once was. “Many have disassociated the tragic and disastrous
consequences of communist states from the socialist ideology which
underpinned them,” it says. “Theresa May has finally
spoken up for capitalism, wealth creation, enterprise and
competition. But given the state of public opinion, it may too little
– too late.”

Labour’s
conference may not yet have delivered a fully perfected programme –
but hearing working class voices everywhere was a breath of fresh
air, despite the media sneers.

Widespread media hostility to
Labour was on maximum revs during and in the immediate aftermath of
the Party Conference. Labour can expect nothing favourable from the
likes of the Daily Mail or the Murdoch press, but the coverage in
much of the self-styled ‘liberal’ press and supposedly
‘impartial’ broadcast media was more dispiriting.

The Independent opted for a nasty,
distorted interpretation of everything Jeremy Corbyn said in his
closing address. The Guardian was at least largely positive with both
Polly Toynbee and Owen Jones among the enthusiasts.

But Channel Four’s Jon Snow
conducted a belligerent interview with Jeremy Corbyn during the
Conference in which he belaboured the Labour leader on Brexit and on
Venezuela. And the BBC was more subtly dismissive. Political Editor
Laura Kuenssberg completed an on-air report by wondering aloud if the
enthusiasm for Corbyn was just a fad. BBC Assistant Political Editor
Norman Smith questioned the public’s appetite for Labour’s new
radicalism and suggested that the public would baulk at anything
other than marginal change. This is opinion, not reporting. Their
effect if not their intention is to put doubt into the minds of
listeners. I have yet to hear anyone at the BBC describe fans of
Boris Johnson as faddists; or the change implied by Brexit as
“marginal”.

Washington
has announced that the United States is removing about 60 percent of
government staff out of Cuba, the Associated Press reports, citing
“specific attacks” that allegedly harmed U.S. diplomats.

It claims
its diplomats were “attacked” in local hotels. Washington,
however, has not released specific information about the nature of
these so-called “attacks.”

The U.S.
government has also indefinitely suspended visa processing in Cuba,
warning its citizens that they could be “harmed” in Cuba.

The
remaining 40 percent of employees who will remain at the Havana
embassy are “emergency personnel.”

“The Cuban
government has never perpetrated nor will it ever perpetrate attacks
of any kind against diplomats,” Cuba said in a statement on
Thursday, when rumors of the embassy staff cut began swirling. “The
Cuban government has never permitted nor will it ever permit the use
of its territory by third parties for this purpose.”

U.S. State
Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson is “still reviewing his options on how best to protect
American personnel in Cuba,” CBS News reported.

With
around 750,000 cases already, the unprecedented scale of the epidemic
makes it “the worst in history,” according to the Red Cross
representative.

In a grim
prognosis of what is the “world's largest humanitarian crisis” in
current days, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
announced on Friday that they fear that there could be at least
one-million cholera cases registered by the end of the year.

The high
civilian casualties and cholera epidemic are caused by the use of
“disproportionate force” and destruction of civilian
infrastructure, Alexandre Faite, the head of the Yemen ICRC
delegation said.

Yemen has
been destroyed by a simultaneous blockade and vicious bombing
campaign waged by a Saudi Arabian coalition backed by western
governments such as the United States and United Kingdom.

According to
Faite, there have been 750,000 suspected cases of cholera so far in
the battered country, and at least 2,119 have died of the disease,
which spreads due to lack of access to clean water and health
facilities.

The
unprecedented scale of the epidemic makes it “the worst in
history,” according to the Red Cross representative.

Famine is
also widespread, with as many as 7.3 million “on the brink,” Kate
Gilmore, the United Nations deputy high commissioner for human rights
said.

According to
the United Nations, at least 10,000 people have been killed as a
result of the Saudi Coalitions efforts to reinstall a government
overthrown by Houthi rebels.

Capitalists
will try every trick to derail a Labour government. Sarah Bates
argues it will take mass resistance and strong counter-measures to
give them a run for their money

Part
1

It’s
not a paranoid fantasy to argue that parts of the establishment want
to derail the left wing Labour leadership’s plans. The prospect of
a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government seemed like an outside chance
earlier this year. It now seems more than possible, with even the
bosses’ Economist magazine calling him “The likely lad”.

At
The World Transformed festival in Brighton last week, shadow
chancellor John McDonnell spoke about a “potential assault” by
the ruling class. He said the leadership is doing “war game-type
scenario planning” for all possibilities following a Labour
victory.

One
possibility is that bankers could launch a run on the pound.
Britain’s currency—the pound sterling—“floats” on the
international market. Its value goes up and down as investors buy and
sell sterling. When the pound falls, private investors claim Britain
may be unable to pay back state debts. So they rapidly sell their
stock of sterling at reduced prices before their profits can take a
hit.

Bankers
and bosses say they withdraw their investments in sterling because
they think the market is in trouble. But they are not just moving
money from one account another—it can be a calculated method of
political influence. If this mass selling happens, it forces the
government to devalue the pound. Because the pound would be valued
less favourably against other countries’ currencies, the price of
imported goods would go up.

The
Tories and mainstream media piled criticism on McDonnell for even
discussing a run on the pound. That’s a bit rich of the Tories, who
presided over an 11 percent drop in the pound after Brexit. In the
immediate aftermath of the vote the pound fell to its lowest level
since 1985—and £120 billion was wiped off the value of the FTSE
100 share index.

But
this isn’t the first time bosses have threatened a run on the
pound. In 1974 Harold Wilson’s Labour government was elected on a
wave of anger against the Tories and rising trade union militancy.
Its manifesto pledged to “bring about a fundamental and
irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power towards working
people”.

The
bosses bared their teeth to face down the Labour government. They
destabilised the economy through mass selling of sterling, which
quickly lost value against the dollar. By 1976 the value of the pound
declined by nearly 25 percent in nine months. Terrified of a
deepening economic crisis, Labour’s chancellor Denis Healey asked
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a huge loan. At £2.3
billion, it was the largest amount the IMF had lent at that point.
But the money came with strings—the IMF insisted the Labour
government impose big public sector cuts.

I can easily
prove the leftist utility of bitcoins by relating one question I
commonly hear: “Ramin, can you please take this medicine to my
family the next time you visit Iran?”

The US
produces more than half of all new medicines, but there is an embargo
on Iran (and Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, etc.): With bitcoins, Iranians
can circumvent these criminal, terroristic restrictions and get
medicines which sick people are being cruelly denied.

So I see
that bitcoins can save lives. Today.

Iran needs
medicine, Cuba needs concrete, Venezuela needs toilet paper –
bitcoins can be used for all these things…IF the left would
immediately get involved with them.

One thing is
absolutely, undeniably clear about bitcoins: The market is absolutely
exploding for them in a way absolutely unseen in any field since the
dot-com boom.

This process
began in April, and it is fascinating. The mainstream media has only
just picked up on this fact.

That means
the average person is totally unaware of the technological and
philosophical innovation/revolution which supports bitcoins:
technically, it’s the Nakamoto consensus (a distributed consensus
algorithm), but the marketing phrase is “block chain technology”.

And
crucially for the future success of bitcoins: Leftists have no idea
what heck is going on.

I think
bitcoins could be the biggest financial weapon seen in ages to
contest capitalism. Therefore, if the left cedes this current
formational period of cryptocurrency to the right, or to
individualistic libertarianism, it will be an enormous setback for
society, socialism and anti-imperialism.

But you
won’t read that in Western mainstream media – you only hear about
making money with bitcoins. To be fair, that has been incredibly
newsworthy as well.

With
the Greek psyche itself the victim of a relentless shaming campaign,
the idea of Greece “going it alone” begins to seem outlandish and
quixotic. It is not. But it is as much tied to a revival of spirit
and self-esteem as to the nuts and bolts of economic transformation.

by
Michael Nevradakis

Part
5 - The argument for leaving the eurozone and the EU

If we truly
support and believe in open and robust public debate, then the
discussion as to whether Greece (or any other EU member-state) will
be better served by departing from the EU or eurozone must be a part
of that dialogue. So far, however, it has largely been excluded from
the public sphere and from anything resembling equal footing in
public discourse—whether that discussion is occurring in the media,
in academia, or in the political arena.

Even if one
is not a proponent of leaving the eurozone or the EU, the fiscally
and politically prudent thing to do would be to have a plan in place
for such a possibility. If, for instance, there is a collapse of the
Italian banking system—which is presently teetering on the edge—or
some other large-scale economic disaster in the eurozone, it’s not
outside the realm of possibility for a domino effect to impact the
entirety of Europe, forcing out some eurozone member states or
resulting in the collapse of the eurozone system itself.

If this
sounds far-fetched, consider the following: there are several
examples of currency unions breaking apart, such as that of the
Austro-Hungarian empire, or more recently the cases of the breakup of
the Czech-Slovak union or Latvia leaving what was essentially a
currency union with Russia in 1992.

While not
exactly like the eurozone today, in the 19th and early 20th century,
the Latin Monetary Union and the Scandinavian Monetary Union
attempted to create a currency peg across multiple countries—which
also occurred more recently in the lead-up to the launch of the
eurozone via the creation of the European Monetary Union. For
different reasons, both monetary unions ended up dissolving, with
member-states eliminating currency pegs between them.

More
recently, the United Kingdom departed the EMU in 1992 amidst
doom-and-gloom scenarios highly similar to those heard today about
departing the eurozone. Instead, what followed was one of the
strongest periods of economic growth in the UK’s history.

Further
precedent exists in the well-known examples of Argentina, which
repudiated the IMF’s austerity diktats and declared a stoppage of
payments on its public debt in 1999. What followed was over a decade
of economic growth which exceeded the global average, and indeed even
the eventual repayment of much of its previous debt at new terms that
it negotiated with most of its creditors.

Iceland,
following its banking collapse in 2008 which was, proportionally, the
largest collapse sustained by the banking sector in a developed
country in history, enacted policies which were in direct opposition
to those being recommended by the IMF. Banks were allowed to
collapse, foreign creditors were initially not repaid, bankers were
jailed. The economy soon boomed, with GDP growth exceeding EU and
eurozone averages and Iceland’s GDP eventually eclipsing
pre-collapse levels. Meanwhile, a devalued currency led to a tourism
and export boom. Eventually, creditors were repaid as well.

While
Iceland and Argentina were not a part of a common currency bloc,
their examples highlight how a nation can reject the austerity
demands of institutions such as the IMF, can declare a stoppage of
payments on its debt, roll back austerity, devalue its currency, and
swiftly return to economic growth. Moreover, Argentina broke its 1:1
currency peg to the U.S. dollar — which, while not the equivalent
to departing a currency union, had the result of restoring the
Argentine government’s ability to enact monetary policy instead of
being reliant on U.S. policy.

Therefore,
even the most vociferous supporter of “remain” would be well
advised to support the development of an exit plan in preparation for
a worst-case scenario which may well emerge from outside the
country’s borders. Unlike the “heroic” Yanis Varoufakis, who
negotiated so fiercely as finance minister in 2015 that he openly
stated he had no “plan B” and would not place “Grexit” on the
table even as a negotiating tool, such a plan would be the most
prudent option even for the most enthusiastically pro-EU regime.

The
paragraphs which follow will outline why a country like Greece must
consider leaving the eurozone and the EU, the various proposals which
have been put forth as to how this could be accomplished, and how a
departure could occur.

29 September, 2017

Jeremy
Corbyn's speech at the end of the recent Labor Party conference was
on the right direction. Corbyn mentioned all the necessary steps that
need to be taken so that one of the motherlands of ruthless
neoliberalism change course, away from the destructive policies
dictated by the neoliberal doctrine.

Leo
Panitch, scholar and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at York
University spoke to Sharmini Peries and The
Real News, pointing that Corbyn's speech was "full
of confidence":

It
was a great speech. full of confidence. When he was first
surprisingly elected leader just over two years ago, he wasn't used
to being in the limelight in that way, and his speech was often
halting. But he's a conviction politician and now that he has the
wind behind him and he has strong evidence that his message is in
fact shifting the ground of British politics, he is full of
confidence. It was a brilliant speech. He made a number of speeches
like that, which were televised, at the beginning of the election
campaign and that had an electrifying effect on the campaign.

He
only mentioned in passing what had been stressed earlier in the week
by other shadow ministers. But the most important of which is a
public investment bank, a national one, supplemented by regional
investment banks where the public sector, the government, would take
the lead in investment. Addressing the fact that everywhere since the
2008 crisis, there's been a recovery of profits but not a recovery of
investment. He says that a Labor government will take the lead in
that. He also says that they will re-nationalize some key industries:
railway, water. energy. Moreover, that many public services that were
expanded through the public sector, through what is known as Private
Finance Initiatives, the equivalent of PPPs in North America, will be
clawed back. They've been inefficiently developed. This is hospitals,
this is the NHS, this is schools, etc.

Yet, Panitch warned:

That's
the centerpiece of it, it's not socialism. Those of us who wish
Corbyn the best should not put ourselves in the position of imagining
it's going to be easy. The reaction, even though it's not socialism,
from the Confederation of British Industry, from the City, from the
banks, have already been, "Oh my god. This is going to undermine
private enterprise," It's far from that, but they will face
enormous opposition. We shouldn't put the kind of emphasis on what
they can immediately achieve that would lead us to then be
disappointed in a way we were when SYRIZA was elected in Greece. We
need to realize their limitations, and when he says, "We're
ready", you just had him quoted as saying, "We're ready for
government", they're not ready. Who could be ready to take on
the kind of powers that be? They haven't built yet, although they, as
he said, massively shifted the center ground of British politics.
That was the most important element of his speech. He isn't yet
ready. They haven't built the base in the labor party, branches in
the trade unions, to win the kind of support from people when, if I
can use the expression, the crap will hit the fan, when all of
the opposition to even these relatively moderate attempts to increase
the state's public sector role in the economy, will be opposed by
both foreign and domestic capital.

Indeed, Corbyn should take a
lesson of what happened in Greece with Tsipras and SYRIZA. They went
with good will to the negotiations with Greece's creditors and
suffered a heavy defeat. Greece paid a huge price as became a debt
colony in the hands of the corporate neo-colonialists.

For four decades, the neoliberal
regime has taken over governments, institutions, minds. It is a
powerful establishment that seeks to drive Europe into the new
Feudalism. To overthrow such a powerful regime one needs a good
strategy and determination.

Angela Merkel is now the main
carrier of the neoliberal mission in Europe. Although she lost
significant power in the latest elections, she has the opportunity to
build the necessary coalitions in order to finish the job in her last
term in power.

Corbyn should take advantage of
Brexit to drive the UK to the opposite direction. While the
Brussels-Berlin axis will seek to implement all the conditions of the
Greek experiment inside the EU, the Labour party under Corbyn could
become an example against this dark future. While Tsipras suffered a
heavy defeat as went unprepared in the battle with the ruthless
neoliberal priesthood, Corbyn should go to the battle with the
neoliberal regime after a good preparation and a well-constructed
plan.

This means that the Labour Party
should build strong alliances inside the UK, especially with workers'
unions and small-medium businesses. The Party should start a
well-organized campaign across the country to make all the workers
unite against the neoliberal agenda of the Tories. Corbyn should
speak to the small-medium business owners to make them realize that
the neoliberal model is their enemy as it only benefits the big
multinational monsters against the small-medium sector.

However, one of the first and most
important moves that Corbyn should do after his election is to
nationalize central bank. The global financial mafia inside and
outside the UK will find very difficult to fight any government that
fully controls the central bank, and therefore, the money supply and
circulation. A public investment bank that would lead public
investments, as Corbyn mentioned, is very important, but not enough.

Of course, you never announce
openly that you are planning to make such a crucial move because the
criminal financial syndicate will finish you before you even start.
In any case, Jeremy Corbyn should prepare the Labour Party for a
fierce battle with the neoliberal regime.

It’s
hard to go negative on such a positive and long overdue reform, but
that seems to be precisely the point, as Saudi Arabia times its
lifting of ban on women driving to drown a critical UN vote and
ongoing financial and diplomatic woes in flood of glowing media
coverage.

by
Whitney Webb

On Tuesday,
international corporate media outlets were abuzz with the news that
the hyper-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia had finally lifted its
ban on women drivers. A royal decree credited to King Salman was
responsible for the sudden change in policy, which Prince Khaled bin
Salman, the king’s son and the country’s ambassador to the U.S.,
called a “huge step forward.” Prior to Tuesday’s decree, Saudi
Arabia was the only country in the world to have such a ban, which
was often cited by critics of the regime’s human rights record.

Much of the
coverage regarding the decision spoke positively of the kingdom’s
human rights trajectory, asserting that “women’s rights have
steadily and slowly gained ground over the years” in the kingdom
and that the move was “a significant expansion of women’s
rights.” The U.S. State Department and White House also spoke of
the policy change in glowing terms and commended Saudi leaders for
their decision. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert declined
to comment on whether the Saudi kingdom needed to do more to ensure
full rights for women.

In their
glowing coverage, many media outlets failed to highlight that the
policy change would not take immediate effect. While these outlets
implied that the change would be immediate, the Saudi decree actually
called for the formation of a committee that would offer
recommendations within the next 30 days regarding how to potentially
implement the offering of drivers licenses to women. Although the
schedule may vary depending upon the recommendations of the
committee, women are not expected to be able to obtain licenses until
June of 2018. As policy analyst Yousef Munayyer noted, this is “far
from letting women drive.”

It also
remains to be seen what hurdles may be added to the granting of
drivers licenses to women. For example, the committee could decide
that women cannot drive alone — as women in Saudi Arabia must often
be accompanied by a male relative in public, in keeping with the
country’s “guardianship laws.” It could also choose to restrict
licenses to women of certain socio-economic status, or restrict the
licenses’ use to specific purposes. In other words, until the
committee makes public its recommendations, it will be hard to know
if Saudi Arabia actually lifted its blanket ban on women drivers.

Prince
Salman told reporters that such limitations would not come to pass.
However, his assurances were not included in the decree and his words
lack the authority that has been wholly delegated to the committee.

Why
suddenly “the right time”?

When Khaled
bin Salman told reporters on Tuesday, regarding the recent decree,
“this is the right time to do the right thing,” he certainly
wasn’t kidding. Indeed, the timing of the decree could not have
been more convenient for the Saudi kingdom, though the Saudi royal
family made no mention of why it really was the “right time” to
end its ban on women drivers.

Between now
and this Friday, when the United Nation’s Human Rights Council
concludes its ongoing session, the international body will vote on a
resolution to decide whether or not to establish an independent,
international probe into war crimes committed in Yemen.

The United
Nations rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has consistently pushed
the Human Rights Council to create an independent investigation into
the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, which began in March 2015.
Since then, over ten thousand civilians have been killed and the
Saudi’s blockade of Yemeni ports and its bombing of civilian
infrastructure have led to 17 million Yemenis lacking access to clean
water and food, as well as to the worst cholera epidemic in history.

The Saudi
regime is clearly uncomfortable with the resolution. They have vowed
to “not accept” the findings of the probe, were the resolution to
pass, and have also threatened any nation that votes in favor of the
probe with economic and political retaliation. Yet, now, with the
international media fawning over the Saudi government’s human
rights “progress,” international pressure against the kingdom may
be reduced as its role in the destruction of Yemen again fades into
the background.

Reform as
misdirection: MBS puts on his makeup

However, the
upcoming UN vote was not the only factor in prompting the
headline-grabbing policy reversal. International media outlets,
though they stated that the decree was signed by King Salman,
consistently noted that the reform was the work of the newly-minted
Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, often referred to by the
acronym MBS.

The coverage
of MBS’ role in bringing about the reform – as well as his role
in Saudi politics – was overwhelmingly positive. For instance, CNN
stated that the lifting of the driving ban was “just the latest in
a series of changes that have been rippling through Saudi Arabia
since the rise of [the] 32-year-old crown prince.”

Other
outlets, such as Forbes, also credited MBS with the decree as part of
his “ambitious” plan to overhaul the Saudi economy by 2030,
noting that the decree would ostensibly allow more women to join the
workforce. The Associated Press further credited MBS for having
“opened the country to more entertainment and fun.”

None of
these outlets mentioned the rise of domestic dissent in Saudi Arabia,
its ethnic cleansing of minorities within its borders, or its major
economic woes – all of which have also occurred alongside MBS’
rise to power.

Given King
Salman’s ailing health and all but confirmed senility, MBS has been
calling the shots in the Saudi kingdom since he ousted the former
crown prince in what some spectators likened to an internal coup. He
is expected to replace his father any month now, as the corporate
media has noted, meaning that he is eager to improve how he is
perceived abroad and cultivate his image as a “reformer.”

However, MBS
is hardly the reformer he purports to be. In fact, his past actions
show him to be a dangerous warhawk prone to impulsivity and rash
judgements. Prior to becoming crown prince, he was the nation’s
defense minister and was largely responsible for the Saudi war in
Yemen, which has drained the country’s finances, as well as for the
collapse in diplomatic relations with neighboring Qatar.

He has also
pushed for war with Iran. MBS has argued, for example, that
diplomatic dialogue with Iran was “impossible” and even hinted at
a Saudi pre-emptive strike against Iran, stating that “We won’t
wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia. Instead, we’ll work so
that the battle is for them in Iran.” Furthermore, according to
other members of the Saudi royal family, MBS was allowed to ascend to
the position of crown prince after accepting conditions that included
“absolute obedience to the U.S. and Israel and carrying out
whatever they ask him to do.”

Thus, the
sudden lifting of the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia is likely
part of a larger public relations campaign, a “dramatic” but
fundamentally cosmetic gesture meant to hide the more displeasing
facets of MBS’ political record as he prepares to become king.
Annually, the Saudis spend millions on public relations efforts,
particularly in the West, as their greatest allies are the United
States and the United Kingdom.

Clearly,
Prince bin Salman would much rather be viewed by the international
community as the Saudi leader who championed women’s rights as
opposed to the Saudi leader who started – and continues – the
country’s genocidal and disastrous war against its southern
neighbor, Yemen.

The
Israeli High Court ruled on the petition Wednesday, however the
judges hearing the case had issued a gag order a day earlier.

Israel
has refused to stop selling arms to Myanmar even though the state has
been accused by the United Nations of "textbook ethnic
cleansing" of the minority Muslim Rohingya population.

A
group of activists in Israel filed a petition in the country’s High
Court of Justice demanding an end to the sales but a senior Israeli
official Shosh Shmueli said that the court should not interfere in
Israel's foreign relations.

While
the Israeli High Court is set to rule on the petition Wednesday, the
judges hearing the case had issued a gag order a day earlier at the
request of Israeli government officials, preventing the case from
being discussed in public.

In
recent years, Israeli arms companies have sold more than 100 battle
tanks, as well as patrol boats and light weapons to Myanmar’s
military.

The
Israeli company, TAR Ideal Concepts has also trained trained Burmese
forces in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, where the military
has used excessive force and violence against the Rohingyas.

28 September, 2017

In
on of his most interesting films,
The
Trap: What Happened to our Dream of Freedom,
Adam
Curtis
describes how the free market fundamentalists attempted to apply what
has been called 'Shock Therapy' in Russia, right after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. 'Shock Therapy' not only ruined the Russian
economy, but even led to the rise of Vladimir Putin in power.

As Curtis says:

In 1992, the American government
had passed the Freedom Support Act. Its aim was to help Russia
reconstruct itself. Along with millions of dollars of aid, came a
group of young American advisers, economists and political theorists,
that had a radical vision of what was necessary. They called it
'Shock therapy'. The aim was to remove all State control over the
Russian economy as a stroke. All price subsidies will be removed, and
all State industries privatized overnight. Their leader was a Harvard
economist called Jeffrey Sachs.

The Americans allied themselves
with a group of young radical free marketeers around Yeltsin, and
together they drew up a plan. Underlying it there was a theory of how
to transform society by creating new human beings. It was the same
theory that laid behind the rise of what was called market democracy
in Britain and America in the 1980s.

The theory said that if one
destroyed all the elite institutions that in the past had told people
what to do, and instead allowed individuals to become independent in
the market place, then they would become new kinds of rational
beings, choosing what they wanted. Out of this, would come a new form
of order, and a new kind of democracy, in which the market, not
politics, gave people what they wanted.

But things didn't work out as the
theory predicted. On the first day of the plan, all price controls in
Russia were removed, and the cost of all goods soared. Millions of
people found themselves unable to afford even the most basic of
goods, and with no one to help them. The only solution for millions
of Russians, was to come out on to the streets and sell their
belongings for anything they could get.

The chaos began to spread, as the
currency no longer had any value. Factories began to pay their
workers in the products they made, which the people then had to sell
wherever they could in order to live. Then, the privatization plan
kicked in. Every Russian was given vouchers to buy shares in the
privatized companies, but desperate for cash, they simply sold their
vouchers to ruthless businessmen for a fraction of their worth. And a
new elite began to emerge who snapped off vast sections of Russian
industry. They became known as the 'oligarchs'.

Faced with this, the deputies in
the Russian Parliament, began to protest against what they called
'economic genocide', would led to chaos and violence inside
Parliament. And in the face of this the group of reformers around
Yeltsin persuaded him he had to suspend Parliament. In protest, the
deputies occupied Parliament. Yeltsin's response was brutal. He
ordered the army to attack, the deputies were arrested, and Yeltsin
announced that he would now rule by decree.

Shock Therapy continued, but in
the future, people were going to be made free, through force and
dictatorship. But what actually happened was that Yeltsin became the
creature of those with the real power in the new Russia, the
oligarchs. In return for loans, Yeltsin gave oligarchs like Boris
Berezovsky, the rest of Russian industry. Sometimes at less than 2%
of its real value. And then, in 1998, the experiment came
dramatically to an end.

The days of economic reforms seem
to be well and truly over here. Out of this economic catastrophe, a
new order emerged, but it wasn't a spontaneous order dreamt of by the
free market utopians. It was the very opposite, a harsh, tough
nationalism, imposed by the new president Vladimir Putin. Putin
arrested or exiled the major oligarchs, and set about dismantling
many of the democratic freedoms in the new Russia. But this was
welcomed by the majority of Russians, who now wanted order, not
freedom. What president Putin could offer Russians were other things,
security, dignity, and above all, a meaning that went beyond their
own individual lives.

Curtis presents ideas originated
from the neoconservatives, first appeared in the US in the early 70s.
This coincides with the neoliberalism era that dominated the West for
about four decades until today. Since then, the neocon/neoliberal
establishment of the West has spread chaos in various regions through
military or economic intervention.

Russia was on its knees after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. But it is obvious that the neocons not
only failed to fulfill their ultimate target which was the definite
occupation of Russia from inside through an economic war, but,
instead, they helped Putin to rise in power. Now, they want
desperately to return to Russia with the same target. With Putin in
power, things now are much more difficult. The US deep state has only
one option: provoke an open and direct conflict.

As
already
described,
what we see in Ukraine is probably another
failure of various think tanks, mostly from Washington, which they
are funded, of course, by the international capital. It seems that,
apart from the fact that they have underestimated Putin's abilities,
they have also wrongly estimated that Russia had passed permanently
in the neoliberal phase and would be ready to become an easy victim
to promote their plans. According to these plans, the ultimate goal
would be probably to dissolve the vast Russian territory in future
and bring in power Western-friendly puppet regimes, in order not only
to conquer the valuable resources, but also to impose permanently the
neoliberal doctrine on "unexplored" regions and
populations.

Participants
will analyze corporate media and revolutionary alternatives to them
in the region

Bolivia
has begun hosting a two-day seminar to discuss the future of
alternative media and attacks by corporate conglomerates against
socialist governments in Latin America.

The
debate will begin by analyzing media attacks against Venezuela's
Bolivarian Revolution, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and
Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Scholars
and journalists from the region will also participate, including
Argentine political scientist Atilio Boron and Bolivian lawyer and
journalist Hugo Moldiz.

It
will also include presentations by teleSUR director Patricia Villegas
and CubaDebate director Randy Alonso.

"Our
objective is to contribute to rethinking the communication issue from
our progressive processes, aware of its importance for the
construction of a leftist, popular and revolutionary political
project," the organizers said in a statement.

The
meeting is organized by the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in
Defense of Humanity and local social organizations, such as as
Generacion Evo, Azules del Oriente and Columna Sur.

The
seminar, the second of its kind in Bolivia, will be held for two
days. The first session will be held in the capital city of La Paz
and the second in the city of Santa Cruz.

Last
year, Santa Cruz held a similar event called "Latin America in
Dispute: Challenges for the Left."

The
panelists will also refer to the role of alternative media, public
broadcasters and community radios in the region.

In the
aftermath of President Donald Trump’s bellicose United Nations
speech – where he threatened to “totally destroy” the 25
million inhabitants of North Korea – Trump’s own use of
provocative and unprecedented language was largely ignored.

Instead,
frenzied coverage focused primarily on North Korea’s response to
his shocking UN address. North Korea’s answer came courtesy of
foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, who told reporters that North Korean
leadership may consider testing a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific in
response to Trump’s UN threats.

The latest
counter from North Korea prompted a frantic response from corporate
media pundits. Fox News interviewed retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters
who argued that such a test would be “close to an act of war.”
Reuters quoted David Albright of the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington, who argued that such a test
would be a “tipping point” for China and might prompt many other
countries to call for an “end to the [North Korean] regime.”

Most reports
gave a scant and highly selective history of nuclear weapons testing
in the Pacific Ocean. Reuters, for example, stated that the United
States’ only test of an operational ballistic missile with a live
warhead was fired from a submarine in the Pacific Ocean in 1962.
Others made no mention of the previous nuclear weapons tests in the
Pacific, or merely stated that the last above-ground test of a
nuclear device was conducted by China in 1980 – suggesting to their
readers that a potential test by North Korea would be among the first
conducted in the Pacific.

In reality,
the history of nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific is as long as it
is tragic. Such tests in the region were conducted exclusively by the
only country in the world to have used a nuclear bomb against another
nation – the United States.